Business Career
After university she showed interest in acting and prison governorship but joined the consulting firm Spectrum, involved in IT and media companies. Her first project was for British Telecom called "What is the Internet ?", here she met fellow employee Brent Hoberman.
In 1998, Lane Fox and Hoberman founded Lastminute.com, an online travel and gift business that generated great publicity, floating at the peak of the dot-com bubble. On 20 November 2003, it was announced that she would step down as managing director of Lastminute.com. The company survived the dotcom crash to be bought for £577m in 2005, by Sabre Holdings. Lane Fox's personal share holding at the time the company was bought was worth £13 million.
On 28 December 2003, it was revealed by The Sunday Telegraph that Lane Fox would join Galen Weston, owner of Selfridges, and take over the day-to-day running of the business.
In 2005, advertising executive Julian Douglas shared an idea of his with her about launching a Tokyo-esque private karaoke bar in London. Favouring the idea, together with Nick Thistleton she launched a private karaoke company Lucky Voice with a club in London's Soho. The company has seven bars countrywide, an online application, and an additional product to be used with computers.
In 2007 Lane Fox joined the board of Marks & Spencer as a non-executive director. She is also on the board of Channel 4. In 2007 Lane Fox joined the board of interior design and furniture website mydeco.com, the start-up venture of her lastminute.com partner Brent Hoberman.
On 16 June 2009, she was appointed the UK Government's Digital Inclusion Champion to head a two year campaign to make the British public more computer literate. She has argued that "I don't think you can be a proper citizen of our society in the future if you are not engaged online."
On 22 March 2010 her government role was expanded when it was announced that she would set up a new Digital Public Services Unit within the Cabinet Office.
In June 2010, the new Government asked Lane Fox to expand her role as UK Digital Champion advising how online public services delivery can help to provide better, and more efficient services as well as getting more people online. She was invited to sit on Cabinet Office's Efficiency and Reform Board. In July 2010 David Cameron hosted an event at 10 Downing Street to celebrate her Manifesto for a Networked Nation - a challenge for people and organisations in every sector and every corner of the country to work together to inspire, encourage and support as many new people as possible to get online by the end of the Olympic year. By the beginning of 2011 the Race Online 2012 campaign had over 1000 partners pledging to reach almost 2 million adults.
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